Light modifier grids

Presumably a metal dish? It’s difficult therefore expensive to get cloth grids with a fine mesh. I haven’t seen one with a Velcro attachment but depending on the diameter metal  grids are available, try essentialphoto, lencarta and theflashcentre, metal grids usually have a mechanical attachment method such as springs which fit into a recess on the dish, but there are some with screw clamps. If you find a very near diameter it will be easier than trying to fit a bigger diameter than the dish. The metal grids are heavier that the fabric.

It’s a collapsable Lencarta beauty dish hence it having a Velcro strip to attach diffusers and grids to it.

It appears the only grids you can buy are a standard size so was looking for a suitable material to make my own with smaller holes.

My only suggestion would be to source a used grid and attach some washers to t edge and use a couple of bungees to hold it over your pop up. Besides that find a sheet of plastic grid cut a circle and attach as described before. You might find a fine egg-crate light fitting diffuser used in overhead ceiling lighting fittings to cobble one together.

There are various sorts of plastic honeycomb material available on the 'net, might be something suitable there perhaps?

The metal grid on my Lencarta large dish is thin metal strips and quite small spacing.

I'd suggest that it doesn't matter how small the dish on the back of that is, the effect on it will be the same.

A few companies make "fin" which is Aluminium* strip spotwelded or pressed into a grid of similar proportions. You could trim that with strong scissors or a computer controlled laser cutter, spray paint it a dull black and have the core of such grids.  Or use it for a heat exchanger pipe or heater which is what it is made for.

If your desire is for smaller holes and rigidity, then a sheet of Ikea pegboard (SKÅDIS), start with the graphite colour and spray if needed, would give you the rigid  wider spaced small holes. When you grew tired of it, you could fasten it to the wall and hang things from it.

* probably Brass as well, for salt exposure, but that doesn't matter.

Unfortunately the company I would have said to go to HoneyGrids, seems to have gone out of business. Chimera make soft grids for their own octas etc that might fit as do DoP Choice but neither of them is what you might call cheap.

Chances are that this won't give you the result you are looking for.

There are too many products out there claiming to be a beauty dish without delivering.

The original beauty dish was invented by Achim Friedrich at Hensel Studiotechnik in Wuerzburg, Germany.
It is unfortunately only available in Hensel EH mount.

The light characteristics of it are unique and unmatched. On distances between 2 meters and more, it
exhibits a very uniform clean even center beam followed by a rather steep fall-off to the perimeter,
fading/feathering into black without visible beam edge. The lack of a visible beam edge is the most
important feature, as it allows to blend into an environment without the light being ostensibly noticed.

Add half an f-stop to a talent standing in any scene, and he/she will literally pop out of the scene,
with only skilled viewers noticing the light. That's the level of high level glossy feature photography.

On distances 1.5m and below, the deflector bowl in the middle will darken the beam center, and the size
of the dish creates a wrap-around effect, preventing forehead and nose to burn away while the sheer
size of it is delivering a soft light overall on a face.

Using a metal honeycomb grid will narrow that effect somewhat but not change it's nature.

The finely tuned light guides and shape of the reflector curvature is critical in that and unique in the market.

Now most of the third party "dishes" will deliver a round core shadow surrounded by a bright ring with
sharp defined beam edges - the exact opposite of what a beauty dish is meant to be.

If yours is among those is easy to check. Position it sideways and then slowly turn it towards you.
When peaking over the front edge you can see the flash tube or COB element of any LED fixture,
yours isn't a beauty dish, yours is a fraud. It will create the dreaded ring with sharp beam edges.

Your best/only option then is to use a front diffuser with only half or even quarter stop cloth,
discard the inner baffle/textile deflector and slap on a good grid.
This will give you an approximation of the center spot plus fall-off, but it won't give
you the close-up quality.

Lighttools in Canada ( https://lighttools.com/pages/we-control-light ) makes some of the finest
softgrids on the market, but prepare for your wallet to weep bitterly.

I once considered using plastic straws glued in a bundle to make a grid for a speedlite. Maybe that approach has some mileage for you?

Simon Carter said

I once considered using plastic straws glued in a bundle to make a grid for a speedlite. Maybe that approach has some mileage for you?

Like the idea of- with the size of my beauty dish I’d need an awful lot of them but great idea 

NickH2 it wouldn’t be that bad. Glue whole straws into hexagonal bundles. Chop into slim hexagons with a fine saw. Then glue those hexagons together.

The ‘straws grid’ will lose a LOT of light.

Lightingman any fine grid will.

Find a suitable size and spray matt black ... and possibly white one as well to experiment with - hexagonal grid

Simon Carter said

Lightingman any fine grid will.

True, but the thickness of the aluminium used to make the grid cells is very thin, the straws, by comparison have much thicker walls, cutting the light down considerably. The straws would have to be black, of course, if they were clear or ‘white’ they’ll just act as a diffuser.

Be careful of melting/burning on straws. Depends on your lighting of course, but if it gets hot, straws will at best deform and worst catch fire, if they are plastic.  If they are paper, then if they go, will go quite fiercly.